There are two sides to every coin.
You highlighted one side of the geopolitical coin. The other side is that no matter how powerful a state becomes, its supremacy is contested and interests are challenged from time to time. This is the way of mankind.
True, however, the argument was, that military might is the first step towards greatness which is then consolidated by the strength of economy. If you create the fear in your adversaries by your military power, whether they near or far, they will think twice before creating hurdles in your path towards economic success. Lets face it, no one wants competition, every nation wants to be the top dog. You just have to barge your way in. Understand this concept and whatever I wrote will become clear.
Do you see US or Russia using their nuclear assets for power projection across the world? Even if they decide to use ICBMs under the circumstances, they will use conventional warheads for offensive purpose.
Nukes and ICBMs are assets of deterrence; they deter prospects of invasion (and regime change), but nothing else. They are not discouraging costly arms race and/or clash of interests between the rivals (a Cold War scenario), an unfortunate trend in which other states become casualties and millions pay the price.
US uses its conventional devices to project power across the world such as Aircraft Carriers, Drones, Cruise Missiles, long-range Bombers, Submarines, Intelligence Networks and Marine expeditionary forces. These assets were not developed for conflicts with so-called Third World Countries in mind. They were developed to counter conventional might of USSR, believe it or not.
The American War Machine that we saw in action during the Persian Gulf War (1991), was originally stationed in Europe to confront the Red Army with renewed confidence. Americans were expecting a major confrontation in the Baltic region and Poland after Afghanistan. Iraq–Kuwait War in 1990 surprised their planners and diverted their attention. US scrambled to defend its allies in the ME.
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This may surprise you but Americans are investing in the notion of credible conventional deterrence against nuclear weapons. ABM systems, Laser weapons and long-range hyper-sonic weapons are all steps towards this end. This development would reduce nuclear threshold and grant Americans and opportunity to adopt a more aggressive posture against a rival nuclear power. A rational development, IMO.
For details, read a report from Michael Gerson - Conventional Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.
Take American and Russian nukes and missile out of equation and see how serious world would take them. Mate, I am really not talking rocket science here. Its not difficult to understand is it? Let me remind you, it was nukes that decisively, in rather brutal way, ended the WW2, despite Japan having a formidable conventional military. If Japan was nuke power with reach to America, would the fate be same to its cities? Put it bluntly, a nation can act rouge and get away with it in pursuit of its national interests just by being a nuke power.
You argument is week, when you say nukes only protect against invasion and regime change but nothing else. Let me ask you again, why only the nuke powers are yielding the veto power in UN, why not Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other economies?
I agree the nukes are not discouraging the conventional arms race, but that is not my problem as far as Pakistan is concerned. I will go back to my original argument. Let me rephrase again. I am not propagating arms race or war path with existing powers to be. We simply cannot afford that. All I am saying that to protect our nationhood, our state and our ideology, we must have the ICBMs and thermos so we can keep away the bullies interfering in our internal matters and taking advantages of our internal fault lines. Mark my words, no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we try to please them, they will not let us break away on our own independent path to prosperity, unless and until they feel that there is a genuine threat to themselves if they choose not to refrain from interfering in our matters. Let me give you a sceniario. We got a certain situation in Baluchistan at the moment which we all know why and who is behind it ever since the fall of Afghansitan and more ever since we gave Chinese access to Gawadar. If someone is saying that CIA with its "local partners" are not behind this, then I can claim to be the queen of England. Some American apologists might say, that America wants to contain China, but do we as Pakistani would give a toss to such argument? Its destabilization within our borders and completely unacceptable. Now, imagine if we have got full spectrum nuke deterrence, and if find that indeed CIA is playing hanky panky, someone from Abpara will pick up the phone, call Langley, and tell them on their face, listen mate, we found this and this, and if you dont back off, find some black within your borders, armed and angry, working for their "human rights" and their own independent state within american borders, or some Mexicans starting their struggle to get back their lands which you occupied, all the "Sans" in south. This can only happen when you have got the reach and power behind you. Its a rule of jungle out their. You cannot reason with bullies. Thats why I said, working under the global nuke umbrella, covertly and overtly to protect your national interests.
I would love to see the day, American actually use all the conventional weapons, the drones, the cruise missiles and what not you mentioned against the likes of Russia and China. Deep down you know the answer as well. Have you not asked yourself, why all of the sudden, all this conventional might have stopped working against the Russians which according to them are blatantly bulldozing the "human rights" in Syria? You know the American didnt have the balls to fight the Soviets during the Afghan war and only when Pakistan took the stand for almost two years on its own, only then they joined in and even that cooperation was not direct military confrontation with Soviets but through Pakistan.
Persian gulf you said? You do know the once Saddam was ally of Americans. A "situation" was created to let America have ingress deeper into ME, thanks for the unipolar world of that time.
There is nothing like "Conventional deterrence", despite American tries to sell this non sense. Even at the height of cold war, when technology was not as advance, the soviets had build what we call suitcase nukes, delivered by hand, right in the heart of manhattan, incase all else fail. Once your adversary has got nukes, its end of game. you then move to sub conventional , third or forth generation warfare.
Now, that is an idealistic assessment, not a realistic one.
Did full-spectrum nuclear umbrella prevent Cold War between the US and USSR and the resultant disintegration of the latter Soviet bloc? No.
Cold War was a clash of civilizations in the true sense of the word. It was a struggle for supremacy on all fronts - culture; power projection; economic policies; leadership style; rights of people; and more. Americans managed to convince much of the world that capitalism and democracy were better systems than communism and socialism, through their pro-active economic and cultural initiatives. Their ideals even penetrated Soviet political circles, leading to democratic reforms within the USSR itself and its resultant disintegration. Yes, this is how USSR met its end.
We need to understand following issues:-
1. Cold War
As I pointed out earlier, full-spectrum nuclear deterrence does not discourages clash of interests. In our case, a Cold War would be inevitable because our interests diverge from American interests in the region (examples include Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba). And we cannot afford it; plain and simple.
2. Geopolitics
Anti-nuclear movement is gaining momentum worldwide, and leading to formation of policies and measures for imposing restrictions on nuclear cooperation between the states. It is not easy to justify full-spectrum nuclear ambitions in this environment.
Check following:
http://www.brecorder.com/top-stories/0/43041/
https://www.brookings.edu/testimoni...egic-relationship-and-nuclear-safetysecurity/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-v-micallef/the-other-bomb-pakistans_b_9180504.html
Pakistani nuclear program and cooperation with China on this front, is already inviting lot of attention. We risk a much more aggressive response from the international community, if we adopt full-spectrum nuclear posture without significant justifications and/or sufficient support and sympathy for our cause within the international community.
The Indian angle
US plays an important role in diffusing tensions between Pakistan and India in case of hostilities. We need peaceful environment to grow and prosper. Therefore, a friendly US is vital for our interests. By developing ICBMs, we send a message to the Americans that they are a threat as well. That is not good.
India is developing its ABM capability. Today, we laugh at their efforts. However, if Pakistan pursues full-spectrum nuclear deterrence, this policy might motivate US to significantly enhance Indian ABM capability in response. Then, sooner of later, US might station its own state-of-the-art ABM assets in the region. Objective would be to neuter the threat of Pakistani ICBMs with multi-layered countermeasures.
US is miles ahead of Pakistan in the areas of power projection, research & development, nuclear options and economy. On top of this, US retains considerable leverage in International Affairs. They have the resources and geopolitical clout to outgun Pakistan in all areas, and isolate it. They are already developing methods to neuter the threat of ICBMs and will achieve this objective at some point in the future. What then?
Now, don't be under the illusion that ICBM (MiRV) capability cannot be countered. News for you: MKVL (near future) and Laser weapons (future).
ICBMs are very expensive to develop and maintain in large numbers. So even if we develop 50 - 100 missiles, they won't be enough to ensure credible deterrence against a Indo-US nexus. On top of these concerns, efforts to cripple Pakistani economy would be underway.
3. Economy
Even with a trillion dollar economy, their is no guarantee that we can sustain a Cold War with the US in the long-term. Sooner of later, our stocks would plummet and we will find ourselves in a severe economic crises. And recovery from it may not be possible.
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Don't believe me?
Read this report:
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2012/RAND_MG1181.pdf
They are studying methods to counter aggressive Chinese designs in the Pacific region, particularly in the matters of Taiwan. China has full-spectrum nuclear deterrence in place, but that is not deterring US from protecting its interests in the Pacific region. In-fact, the entire world is expecting a Cold War between China and US in the near future. Perhaps, it has already begun.
You have a tendency to jump the gun straight away. Who is asking for cold war between Pakistan and western civilization? No sir, if those thousands of nukes, ballistic missiles which can easily reach our cities in Pakistan, in the arsenal of west, dont "classify" to be a threat to us, Pakistani ICBMs and thermonuclear weapons shouldnt be taken in any other context but to preserve our statehood and our core national interests. Read my comments above and all will be clear.
It is vicious cycle, my friend. A virtually endless arms race.
Agree, however when you suggested that tactical weapons are of no use and not being deployed by west, I just corrected you by referring to the ground realities.
I explained to you earlier how China got away with full-spectrum nuclear deterrence. Current geopolitical climate doesn't favors this move, in our case and also for many countries.
To be honest, of all times in our history, the best of time to break out for Pakistan would be now, when world is in a transition from unipolar to multipolar. We took advantage of cold war tussel between Soviets and yanks to advance our nuke program. World order is not stable atm. We have got a window of opportunity to break free. Who knows when world world stabilize, be it multipolar, bipolar or go back to unipolar, we may not have this window of opportunity for a very long time looking into future.
Really?
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a strategic blunder in the sense that it turned public opinion in many Islamic countries against USSR. US capitalized on this development and gained greater foothold in the ME as a consequence. US exploited this development further to its advantage by orchestrating the so-called
Mujahideen movement and emotional Muslims fell for it worldwide, not realizing the fact that the (communist) government of Afghanistan sought assistance from USSR to prevent its downfall in a civil-war like situation in the country. In short, it was supposed to be a strictly Soviet-Afghan affair.
Time for history lessons:
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/ussovme.htm
You suggesting that Arabs would be so upset with Soviet Union, a country which armed them against Israelis in their wars (please read Arab-Isreali war and weapons used from both side), and the same arabs would ignore the blatant and in your face support of Isreal by America? Go back in history and learn as to how much Soviets were involved with Arabs at the height of cold war and had the soviet union survived, there wont be any gulf wars, mark my words. America only occupied the space, left by the soviets. But again we are going off topic here.
My friend,
They are home-grown movements. Foreign entities noticed fault-lines in our society and exploited them.
Profile of BLA =
http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/297
Profile of TTP =
http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/105
Do you really expect our authorities to come clean on these matters? The tradition of blaming others for all the ills in our society, is widespread in our country. It represents our mentality on a national level. Those in power, look for a convenient justification or scapegoat to overshadow their strategic blunders and/or misguided policies. They know that nobody will question them from within Pakistan.
Sources of funding and strategies for BLA and TTP, is another topic altogether, and have nothing to do with my arguments. One thing is clear to me that their agents are known to kidnap wealthy individuals for ransom.
Taliban movement stabilized many areas in the war-torn country (i.e. Afghanistan) during 1990s. Pakistan had to work with them, to ensure regional stability. It was a sound decision back then. Unfortunately, Taliban sheltered elements that were expelled from the ME due to their violent activities. These elements collectively formed the infamous Al-Qaeda Network and used Afghanistan as a staging ground for planning and funding their terrorist ambitions. Then 9/11 happened, and it changed the dynamics of the region.
What is YOUR defination of "home grown" ? I am LEAST interested in american perspective or their thought process, please kindly save your time and energy in linking me their think tank`s urls. Lets have one to one debate on this. Let me hear your thoughts. How would you classify the black supremacist groups within American society who from time to time show militant tendency to "express" themselves. How about the black Jews with Isreali society who are marginalized because of the color of their skin, what about the basque of Spain, what about the Irish republican army within the domain of United kingdom? Fault lines or "home grown"?
I will again refer you to my comments above. In our Pakistani contexts, where were the likes of BLA and TTP before the fall of Afghanistan under forigen occupation? Again, the key word is "deterence", "deterence" against ALL.
Let me hear YOUR thoughts, I really dont have time to read some random bullshit on internet. And I said that with utmost respect to your views.
Tell me one thing that I got wrong about India and its standing in the international affairs.
My friend, US perceives North Korea as a much greater threat to its national interests than Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan is diplomatic in its engagements but North Korean hostility does not needs any introduction.
America wants to use India to kill two birds with one stone, first to humble Pakistan in some sort of client state to India and secondly, to contain China. Have this basic perspective in your mind and everything will become clear. India on its own, is no better then Bangladesh.
Yea, so why comparing Pakistan with north Korea? As I said, just like western huge arsenal of nukes and ballistic Missiles are not a threat to Pakistani cities, our such arrangements shouldnt be a threat to their cities as well. Its no rocket science is it?
Their is no such thing as impregnable silos, specially on land.
Silos should be dispersed across the land mass, not concentrated to a specific region.
Going by your logic, Israel got no right to keep Jericho 3 ICBM?
Wake up my friend. Its a dirty world out there. We got enough geography to have credible deterrence.
Do you see or hear NK being discussed as world third biggest nuke power? You are comparing oranges with apples here.
I understand your thought process, but what I would request from your to take that american hat away, you are wearing for a moment, and ponder on this clip below. specially at 00:22 and 00:33 .
No Sir NO NO, I am not for once selling the conspiracy theory that hollywood is the tool of American establishment to project their propaganda or their prespective or their intentions. BUT what I would like to point out, with all due respect, that when a lousy, third grade hollywood director/producer/story writer can think about nuking Pakistan, under whatever pretext (nukes falling under the hands of Islamists or what not), a country which has sacrificed so much for the interests of United states throughout the history, wiping karachi (00:22) and perhaps Khushab (00:33), shouldnt we, the so called keyborad warriors should be thinking about the "worst case scenario". Are we prepared? No sir we are not.
There are no permanent friends in international politics, only interests are. I am sure you are well aware of this famous quote. I wont be surprised, if tomorrow, China become Pakistan enemy and India our closest ally. We must protect our nationhood jealously and leave no stone unturned towards that end, so much so, that whatever the future geopolitical situation is, there is no one on the planet who can challenge our sovereignty.
As they say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
